The Assembly Education Committee on Wednesday narrowly approved a bill that would limit the release of student records to school district contractors, but stopped short of advancing a measure that would prohibit the collection of biometric data from students, such as retinal and fingerprint scans.

The committee also heard testimony on two other bills: a controversial proposal to overhaul the state's 2-year-old report card system and issue penalties for low-performing schools, and another bill — featuring rare agreement — that aims to keep fly-by-night private schools from getting taxpayer money through voucher programs.

The Assembly has been more eager than the Senate to move along some of the controversial education measures — which ultimately need approval from the other branch of the Legislature to become law.

Specifically, the bills taken up by the Assembly panel Wednesday addressed:

■Student records.The committee advanced on a 6-5 vote a measure that would limit the release of pupil records to entities that contract with a district. The vote advanced the measure to the full Assembly.

School district administrators have argued against that move, saying that school districts rely on contractors to help with everything from special education to student health services, and that limiting the sharing of data with those providers would harm students.

■Biometric data. A bill that aims to prohibit the collection of data that would assess a child's physiological or emotional state, such as through the use of retinal or fingerprint scans or blood pressure cuffs, was pulled from a vote for "further work," according to a clerk.

That bill stemmed from Republican lawmakers interpreting an element of the literature associated with the nationwide Common Core State Standards to suggest that such data might be collected from students.

■School accountability. The Assembly heard testimony on a school accountability bill that would assign all taxpayer-financed schools an A-F grade and issue sanctions on those that perform poorly three years in a row.

Unlike a similar bill that has stalled in the Senate, the Assembly version would not require 5% of all schools to receive an automatic "F" rating.

Still, the DPI opposed the measure, saying that assigning grades to schools would break the faith with stakeholders who participated in the design process of the report card system, and that altering the measurements used could have other repercussions.

■Higher requirements for new voucher schools. In a rare alliance, representatives from the DPI and School Choice Wisconsin testified in support of a new bill that would make it more difficult for new private schools to get approved to receive public money through the state's voucher programs.

DPI supports the bill because it would require voucher schools to maintain accreditation from legitimate agencies. Previous state law only required the schools to get accreditation, but not to keep it, which allowed many unstable or ineffective schools to continue to get taxpayer dollars.